Nov 22, Colombo: Sri Lanka's national carrier, SriLankan Airlines, which last month launched daily non-stop services to Melbourne, is providing its valued passengers with a wide range of options to connect and fly to major cities in Australia and New Zealand, by expanding its codeshare agreement with its long-time partner and fellow oneworld alliance member Qantas.

SriLankan will codeshare on Qantas' services from Melbourne to Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney in Australia, and New Zealand's largest city Auckland. In turn, Qantas will code-share on SriLankan's flights between Colombo and Bangkok as well as its flights between Colombo and Hong Kong. The new codeshare flights will be available for booking from 20th November 2017 with travel from 18th December 2017.

Top tier frequent flyers of both SriLankan and Qantas will be entitled to a range of oneworld benefits such as the opportunity to earn and redeem miles, lounge access, additional baggage allowances and priority check-in and boarding. Member airlines of the oneworld alliance link over 1,000 destinations in 160 countries.

"The expansion of our partnership with Qantas, along with the launch of our non-stop Colombo-Melbourne flights, provides our passengers with seamless connectivity from Australia's largest cities to Colombo and of course vice versa. We are also delighted to be able to offer to our customers services to New Zealand for the first time in SriLankan's history, creating more travel options for Sri Lankans and New Zealanders alike," CEO of SriLankan Airlines Captain Suren Ratwatte said.

SriLankan and Qantas have enjoyed a mutually beneficial code-share agreement since 2014, with SriLankan code-sharing on Qantas flights from Singapore to Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane and vice versa; and Qantas code-sharing on SriLankan's flights between Colombo and Singapore.

Sri Lanka's National Carrier operates a route network of 102 cities from its hub in Colombo, with a fleet of modern aircraft with the latest comforts such as flatbeds in Business Class and sophisticated in-flight entertainment, to complement its world class service that is famed for caring and warmth.